Editor Log: April 19, 2001

At the suggestion of mblase, a normally level-headed noder if ever there was one, I removed many of the w/u's in both haiku and limerick. I realize that many long-time users had work in those two nodes. And I realize that many of the ones I removed were very good. However, as mblase said (and I agree), those nodes should really be about the concept of the poetic forms and not a place to post examples of the form. Examples of the form should have their own titles and own nodes somewhere, it would seem to me.

So, feel free to tell me I'm wrong here. Or, feel free to dig your work out of Node Heaven and repost it under another node title. (However, please remember Pet Semetary and last night's episode of Buffy. Be very careful that your resurrected dead w/u has not soured on you during the process.)

Today, in the course of my redactorial duties, I killed all the writeups in two nodes. Most recently--this is the non-controversial one--both entries in Useful Spanish Phrases because my good friend taschenrechner, who speaks more or less fluent Spanish, informed me that they were, well, um, useless. And, looking at them, I had to say I agreed with him--"Donde esta Taco Bell?" Please.

On to deeper waters. This morning, after a leisurely bath, I got online to get my daily dose of e-mail and E2, and also to download the Linux 2.4.3 kernel. I noticed a node entitled I don't want you to feel guilty, I just want you to stop eating meat. For those of you who missed it, the title pretty much summed up the idea of the first writeup. For the record, I like meat, and I eat lots of it. By the same token, for a small time, I lived in a monastic environment in which we ate no meat--but more for the denial of fleshly desires than any interest in the bad effect on the body, or cruelty to animals raised for the purpose of sale as meat. I read every writeup there at the time, and I came to a decision: This node must die. Then I ran off to work. Evidently, though, I fucked up and forgot to mark the very first writeup. Sorry about that. Looks like dannye took care of it, though.

I have received criticism for my action from certain quarters, and so I'd like to document my reasoning. To those who wrote followups, I extend my gratitude for for not making a flame war out of the whole thing. Every writeup that I read, including the first one, was well thought out and cogently presented. I should hope to expect no less from my E2 cohorts, which is why I mercykilled all of them rather than charging -5 XP. But the fact of the matter is this: GTKY nodes fucking suck. Granted, the GTKY aspect of this node was a little more subtle than the late and unlamented What do you say after sex? that I myself started what seems like ages ago. But a listing of "Well, this is what I think," "Well, you're wrong; this is what I think," etc., is not what E2 is about--although, I'd be the first to admit that it's difficult to say exactly what E2 is about--no matter how well presented. My concern also with the followups was that they were just that--followups. This is not a forum. This is not a coffehouse or a bar, in which to endlessly argue all the things that are wrong with the world and how to fix them. Neither is this a pulpit, nor a dais on which to hold a debate.